My DGM (76) is currently visiting my DM for the first time since December 2019 due to the pandemic. We are all in the UK, but she lives in a different country to us and is hundreds of miles away.
DGM has been um'ing and ah'ing about moving to us over the years, and the one thing that has held her back is her friendship network. She really does have a very lively social life with lots of good friends - however no family or long-term partner close by, and over lockdown it became evident that of course, her friends prioritise their own families over her. She was bubble-less, and mostly alone for christmas.
She also struggles with depression and has told us she got to the point where she was suicidal with loneliness over the pandemic, and gets upset if we don't phone her every single day - so emotionally, she already relies on us a great deal, and I see this getting more intense.
As mentioned, she is currently visiting my DM. My DM and DSis have noticed that she is forgetting things, asking the same questions multiple times in a day, forgetting when she puts toast on, things like that. She also had a heart attack a few years ago, and has had a hip replacement. To be frank, she is not in the best shape, and we are worried it's going to go downhill from here, and she'll be stuck hundreds of miles away with no family to take care of her. However, she is absolutely adamant that she is staying put.
Where my DM lives right now would be great for her - it has a place of faith for her (unusual for a small town), pottery class, a women's choir, a theatre. I know it would be hard for her to make friends at first but she'd still be able to stay busy whilst having my DM on hand, as well as being able to see me and my DSis fairly regularly.
I have visions of helping her move in 5 years rather than in 2, when her health has gotten much worse, and I feel that it would be a lot harder for her then than it would be sooner. Would we be completely unreasonable to try to convince her to move up before it's too late?